The best Jadon Cohee can figure, it was about 7 o’clock Sunday morning.

He had not slept, the emotions of the previous night still right where he had left them, that feeling that comes from losing the biggest game of your life.

“I figured I would just bus down to DRIVE,” the 6-foot-4, 180-pound point guard remembers, pulling on a hoodie and saying goodbye to his mom as he headed from his home in Langley to the basketball academy in Richmond where he has spent much of his youth honing his offensive moves. “I needed to clear my mind after what had happened. I was there that day for eight hours just shooting and playing.”

In essence, it was Day 1 in his bid to help his team, the Walnut Grove Gators, get back to the B.C. Triple A championships, and this time, win it.

That Sunday morning was March 18, the day after his team’s last-second 75-74 loss to Port Coquitlam’s Terry Fox Ravens on a 10-foot jumper with 3.4 seconds remaining by Jesse Crookes, and ever since, Cohee has missed just one day of workouts.

Today, the Gators debut in The Province’s Big 10 Triple A rankings at No. 1, and in advance of those provincial tournament games this March, the ones the Grade 11 Cohee is so driven to help lead his team towards, comes the opportunity this Saturday to face one of the most renowned high school basketball teams in the world.

Walnut Grove will face the Findlay Prep Pilots of Henderson, Nev., winners of three of the past four ESPN national high school invitational championships, in the opening game of the first annual Tsumura Basketball Invitational at the Langley Events Centre.

It is a fitting way for the Gators to open the 2012-13 season, playing in its own hometown with a No. 1 ranking against a team which has produced four NBA draft picks the past three seasons on the same floor in which it lost to the Ravens just over eight months ago.

And Cohee is leaving nothing to chance, his preparation missing none of the minute details.

“I have added 17 pounds of muscle,” states Cohee, the number giving away the meticulous nature of his workouts and diet. “Now I can take a hit and finish a three-point play a lot better. Now I can take a hit and not even move. I feel like I have gotten faster and more explosive. My vertical has improved four-to-five inches.”

With a host of returnees, including standouts Paul Getz and Brad Hoffman, the Gators look to be even more dominant than last season, given the level of offseason dedication Cohee says he seen from the entire group.

“We are a lot more cohesive and together than last year, and last year I thought chemistry wise, we were the best team, so that is saying a lot,” explains Cohee, whose play last season as a 10th grader seemed unprecedented. “We’re all best friends, in the mornings we all come in to shoot, we lift together after practice. Our team goal this year is to win. And my personal goal is to average a triple-double.”

A bold statement to be sure, but one Cohee doesn’t take lightly. He loves putting carrots in front of himself. And he has developed an edge and an attitude that has helped make him a respected foe every time the DRIVE team plays in the U.S.

“A (NCAA) Div. 1 coach who saw (Walnut Grove) working out told me ‘This looks like a team that lost the championship at the buzzer,'” relates DRIVE basketball head coach Pasha Bains who has worked with Cohee on his game since his elementary school days. “He said you could tell just by the way they were running, and most of that comes from Jadon. After they lost, he started the next day, and over the summer, his sense of urgency was incredible.”

Cohee’s DRIVE team, which includes standouts like Tristan Etienne and Corey Hauck of Abbotsford’s W.J. Mouat, toured the U.S. extensively, playing at eight separate events in Seattle, Portland, Las Vegas and Houston over the summer.

It has all been a part of a learning process for Cohee, who has seen a distinct difference in B.C. players versus American ones.

“The best way you can describe it is if there is a scholarship on the ground in the States, American kids would kill for it,” Cohee says. “But in B.C., everyone is too nice. In the States, they are up in your grill, trash tralking. In Canada, they all say ‘Nice play.'”

Bains says that everyone on the circuit in Washington, Oregon and northern California “knows No. 12 Jadon from DRIVE. I’ve never seen a kid more passionate about the game. And to his credit, he’s paid attention to his weaknesses.”
Like playing defence, which is very quickly becoming a strong suit, and something he credits with Gators’ head coach George Bergen bringing to his game.

“Mr. Bergen is the best coach I have ever had in my life, because he’s helped me through not just basketball stuff, but personal stuff, too. And he’s been hard on me, but I like that becasue it shows how much he cares.

“I wasn’t a very good defender,” Cohee continues. “I had never been held accountable. But I got subbed off last season because I couldn’t really play defence. He helped me through that.”

Adds Bergen: “He would be losing out if I didn’t make him into a defensive force as well. He just wants to prove himself, and he wants to do it as a leader of this team. That tells me how determined he is.”

The B.C. Triple A championships don’t begin until mid-March. No word yet on whether or not Cohee has planned to take any days off between now and then.

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Head of the Class 2014

Recognizing courage and commitment in high school sports. For details click here.